Clips

The December issue of Details includes my feature on the fetishization of hot Jewish women. Read on for quick, snappy, not-terribly-deep take on “JILFS,” semi-observant hardcore queen Joanna Angel and the glory of frum porn.

Redheads. Piercings. Big natural boobs. Now add another item to the list of America’s favorite sexual fixations: Ladies of the tribe.

That’s right - Jewish women are the latest fetish ethnicity. On a recent poll of readers of the porn blog Fleshbot, “Jewish girls” came in number two in a list of top ten kinks (edging out “girls on bikes” but falling short of the number one entry: “freckles”).

Jewesses aren’t just the rage of the triple-X realm: they’re wooing goyim with their wily ways on “Mad Men” and “Glee” and giving movie geeks conniptions over reports that Darren Aronfsky’s upcoming feature “Black Swan” features choice JILF-on-JILF action between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. And what would “I’m Fucking Matt Damon” have been without the hot-smutty-incredibly-Jewy Sarah Silverman?

America, it seems, suddenly can’t get enough hot Semite tush. That’s all the more remarkable given that Jews represent a truly tiny minority (2.2% at last count) that just finished serving up a similarly overwhelming wave of their menfolk—the so-called Jew Crew of Ben Stiller, Judd Apatow and his gang of lovable zhlubs (Seth Rogan, Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill, Jason Segal, et al.)

Unlike their funnymen frat brothers, Jewish girls have to contend with that old stinging JAP stereotype of frigidity, whininess and big hair. But the Fran Drescher rep has given way to a more smoldering, exotic mold - think Rachel Weisz, Emmannulle Chirqui, Jennifer Connelly or Scarlett Johansson. “The dark hair, the olive skin, the dark eyes - it’s the whole physical type,” says Harry Pallenberg, a documentary filmmaker from Italian-German stock who dated a number of Jews before marrying one. “It’s not a religious thing - the more observant the Jew, the less I’m attracted.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. How else to account for “Frum porn,” dirty pictures of religious Jews getting busy that’s earned a devoted following far outside the faith from those who find something impossibly smutty and exotic watching a girl in a sheitel give a blowjob. “It’s something like the Catholic schoolgirl fetish,” says Jewish porn star James Deen. “We all want to defile that purity and wholesomeness.”

Jews are of course no strangers to porn—the Hebrew hardcore hall of fame includes Ron Jeremy, Nina Hartley and Seymore Butts. Only recently, however, have porn performers begun to actively embrace their ethnicity. “I never in a million years thought my Jewishness would be an asset,” says Joanna Angel, who grew up in a strict Orthodox family and went on to star in films with titles like “Cum on My Tattoo” and “Porny Monster.” While she’s hardly observant, she still fasts on Yom Kippur, avoids bacon and checks in with her New Jersey mother more than is strictly necessary. She often finds herself wandering around porn sets in stiletto heels and corsets asking if everyone in cast and crew has had enough to eat.

“I embody a lot of Jewish stereotypes - I have a Jewish nose and Jewish hair and I kind of talk like I’m Jewish,” she says. “I also own my own company and I feel guilty all the time.”

It’s no secret that Jews are comparatively cool about sex - from the racy Purim story of that hottie concubine Queen Esther to the masturbatory fiction of Philip Roth and Erica Jong, the Jewish tradition is a veritable orgy compared to more restrained if not repressive Christian traditions. Jews don’t talk much about “hell” or even “sin” and Rabbis hector their congregants that it’s a “double mitzvah” to get busy on shabbos. While official teaching frowns on sex outside of matrimony, the dirty jokes and astonishing number of Craigslist ads for casual encounters among hot-bodied Jews suggest a lasciviousness that many outside the tribe find irresistible. And while it’s possible that these women might question the intentions of their pursuers—and indeed, there’s something creepy about some guys’ desire to dominate a Jewish chick—most accept the attraction and the fact that that their genetics have delivered some pretty seductive traits.

Many in this Jew-loving camp find their way to dating sites like JDate, which lists 13% of its 650,000 members as religiously “unaffiliated.” Some of these so-called “goyfriends” are seeking educated, marriage-minded partners; others are simply looking to hook up with a hot Jewess. “It’s really annoying—I get emails from guys saying things like, ‘I never regretted not being Jewish so much as when I saw your profile,’” says a New York nonprofit professional who asked to remain nameless, given that her extracurricular hours are spent running a group called Kinky Jews, a social group for those who enjoy mixing religious observance with whips, spiked heels and partner swapping. Goy gatecrashers are not unheard-of at the group’s annual Kinky Seder, a Passover party in which the bondage of ancient Hebrews is honored with chocolate licorice whips and the sharing of “favorite kink items.”

Likewise, non-Jews have been unexpectedly enamored with “The Year of the Jewish Woman,” a 2009 self-published calendar in which writer-actress Jamie Sneider poses nude blowing a shofar and elsewhere covers her 32-Ds with strategically placed bagels, latkes and brisket. While she’s heard from a few Jews who find the images sacrilegious, the calendar has been a hit outside the tribe, getting distributed on a USO tour of Iraq and landing Sneider on Playboy radio. “This is about taking my power as a Jewish woman back,” says Sneider. “I can be a Jewish woman and not be uptight and in fact be really proud of my sexuality and my body.”

For her part, the porn star Angel says while she’s open to girl-on-girl, double penetration and all sorts of stuff that will never earn her the approval of her orthodox relatives, there are certain things a good Jew just won’t do. She’s rejected offers to make a holiday porn in the mold of this year’s “Dr. Suzy’s Porn & Purim DVD Bacchanal,” which mixed group sex with groggers and hamentaschen. “I’ve totally desecrated Christian traditions before,” she says. “In one video I put a cross-shaped dildo inside me, but I’d never do anything with a menorah—that’s just creepy.”